Quotations

Hanif Kureishi (5th December 1954) is a British novelist, playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker of Pakistani and English descent. He’s written many novels and short story collections, but is maybe best known for the Buddha of Suburbia, his first novel, which was also adapted as a four part mini-series of the same name.

Born in Bromley South London to a Pakistani father and an English mother, His father harboured dreams of writing but his ambitions were never realised. In contrast, his son Hanif is considered to be one of the greatest British writers and actually made the Times list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945”. Read More

The Bad Sex in Fiction Award has been honouring authors’ terrible sex scenes since 1993. Established by Rhoda Koenig, literary critic, and Auberon Waugh, the then-editor of The Literary Review, the award targets creepy, strange, and gross depictions of sex and bodies. Any author of regular fiction (no overtly-erotic books or pornography) who has written a truly awful description of sex is a contender- and it honestly does not matter if the book is actually a fine piece of work otherwise.

Last year’s winner was Christopher Bollen, an American novelist whose passage describing the protagonist’s love interest is both weird and utterly unsexy:

“She covers her breasts with her swimsuit. The rest of her remains so delectably exposed. The skin along her arms and shoulders are different shades of tan like water stains in a bathtub. Her face and vagina are competing for my attention, so I glance down at the billiard rack of my penis and testicles.”

David Bowie was one of the many celebrities who got involved with Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire, and answered the questions with his usual kook and oddity.

The original questions were a Victorian version of the personality quizzes from Buzzfeed of Playbuzz where we find out which Spice Girl we are most like or what fruit we could have been in a past life… Sort of. The answers given are supposed to offer an insight into the personality of whoever is answering.

Originally given to Marcel Proust by his female friend Antoinette, the manuscript was not seen by the public until after Proust’s death. This unfortunately meant that Proust was given all the credit for the questionnaire when in part it should have gone to Antoinette. Such is the life of a woman- to be basically ignored while a man takes credit. Anyway, I digress… The pop legend David Bowie answered these back in the 70s, and the book of the best star answers was published in 2009- available now to purchase!

Tracy Chevalier was born in Washington DC on the 19th of October 1962, and was the youngest of 3 children. She moved to the UK and now lives in London with her English husband, son, and cat.

Tracy is well known for her 2000 novel The Girl With The Pearl Earring that was adapted for the big screen and starred Scarlett Johansson. Her other novels include Remarkable Creatures; The Lady and The Unicorn; and The Virgin Blue.

Frank McCourt was born on 19th August 1930 in Brooklyn New York. His family moved back to Ireland during the Great Depression, where his alcoholic father, found it difficult to come by and keep a job. After McCourt’s father left Limerick, his mother struggled alone, to bring up Frank and his siblings in abject poverty.

McCourt returned to NewYork in 1949, where he managed to survive doing odd jobs, until he was drafted during The Korean War. On his discharge he managed to bluff his way into New York University, where in 1957 he graduated with a batchelor’s degree in English. He went on to teach at six schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan and earned his master’s degree in 1967. Read More

Richard Bach (23rd June 1936) is an American author and pilot, responsible for some of the best selling books of the 1970s. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Bach served in the United States Navy Reserve and the New Jersey Air National Guard’s Fighter Wing as a pilot before becoming an author.

During his time there he was also a contributing editor for Flying magazine and Avian, before finally writing his first novel Jonathan Livingstone Seagull in 1970. Bach went on to have a full literary career, writing many fiction and nonfiction books, most of which were somehow based around flying. Read More

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer (16th June 1938) whose first book was published in 1962. Through the years Oates has published over forty novels, plays and novellas and many volumes of short stories, poetry and nonfiction too.

Oates is one of the most celebrated American authors of our time and has won many awards including the National Book Award for her novel Them (US – UK), two O. Henry Awards and the National Humanities Medal. She has also been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize six times. Read More

Katherine Anne Porter was born on the 15th of May, 1890 and died on the 18th of September, 1980. She was known as a journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist in the USA. Her best selling novel, Ship of Fools was published in 1962 and became very popular while her short stories received much critical acclaim. She is best known for her insightful work and dark themes that run through her work.

This fantastic writer would scoff at anyone who proclaims that politics should be kept away from literature. We’ve gathered 10 of her most insightful quotes here for your perusal…

Peter Carey was born in Bacchus Marsh, Australia on the 7th of May, 1943.

As a young man working in an advertising agency Carey was introduced to authors such as Faulkner and Joyce and was inspired to pick up his own pen. Thanks to his job introducing him to a wide selection of writers, Carey got the literary education he lacked at school.

After thirteen years of writing, and rejection of four of his novels, he finally hit gold with his short story collection – The Fat Man in History (1974). He is still writing today, with his recent book A Long Way from Home (2018) is a passionate and critically-minded novel about living legacies of colonialism in Australia.

The award-winning writer is one of four authors to have won the Booker Prize twice- the others being Hilary Mantel, J. G. Farrell, and J. M. Coetzee.

Novelist, John Robert Fowles was born on 31st March 1926 in Leigh on Sea, Essex.

After studying French for his degree at Oxford, Fowles taught English, first at The University of Poitiers in France and then on the Greek island of Spetsai. It was his time on this island that gave him the inspiration for his first novel “The Magus”. Read More